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Resources updated between Monday, December 09, 2013 and Sunday, December 15, 2013

December 13, 2013

Obama administration overlooks Iran sanctions violations

The UN Security Council considered a report before which said Iran was in "violation of its obligations under resolution 1929 (2010) and previous resolutions." And yet, instead of insisting that Iran comply with those Security Council legally binding obligations, the Obama administration threw ten years of diplomacy out the window. Russia took the cue, and demanded that the UN's nuke agency, the IAEA, "close the Iran dossier in the near future."

The UN General Assembly adopted yet another anti-Israel resolution demanding more economic aid for Palestinians. If Palestinians were serious about the welfare of their brothers and sisters, they would use cement to build hospitals and schools instead of terror tunnels.

At the UN Security Council, Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court delivered her 18th (!) report on the horrors of Darfur. She said: "the adoption of resolution 1593 (2005) had represented hope for Darfur's victims that their suffering would end, those responsible for crimes committed would be held accountable, and, above all, lasting peace and security would return to the area. Sadly, with each report, those hopes had faded, as the situation in Darfur continued to deteriorate and the plight of victims went from bad to worse. Such circumstances posed a threat to international peace and security. As well, conditions in Abyei and along the border between Sudan and South Sudan had deteriorated. In 10 years, the situation in Darfur alone had cost the United Nations and aid groups more than $10.5 billion, and the lives of 47 aid workers..." China responded that the Darfur situation was "complicated." Look forward to a 19th report and more heartbreak.

The UN General Assembly's Fourth Committee, comprised of all UN member states, (formally entitled the Special Political and Decolonization Committee) adopted a series of 9 anti-Israel resolutions they called "traditional texts on the Middle East." True, in so far as antisemitism is a UN tradition. The Committee adopted not one resolution condemning any other Mideast state.

"Abdulla Shahmola trudges up the road leading from Addis Ababa airport to the outskirts of the city, his battered black suitcase balanced precariously on his head. Weariness and relief are etched into his delicate features as he heaves his heavy bag to the floor. "I have so many possessions that I had to leave behind in Saudi Arabia – a television, a bed, a fridge," he laments, adding that he is thankful to be back in Ethiopia. Abdulla is one of hundreds of men, women and children steadily streaming from the airport cargo terminal, where up to 20 flights have been arriving daily from Jeddah and Riyadh since 13 November. A kilometre's walk from the hastily erected transit centre, which has been processing some 7,000 returning migrants each day, a small crowd, held back by federal police officers in blue military fatigues, waits anxiously for a glimpse of a loved one. As of 8 December, 115,465 Ethiopians – 72,780 men, 37,092 women and 5,593 children, 202 of whom were unaccompanied – had returned from Saudi Arabia, according to government figures. The migrants, most of whom were in Saudi Arabia without work permits, were expelled after a tightening of labour regulations in March and the expiration of an amnesty for illegal workers on 4 November."

"The General Assembly year of solidarity resolution requested the UN's Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People to organize activities around the year-long observance, in cooperation with member state governments, the United Nations system, intergovernmental organizations and civil society. In other words, the United Nations facilities will become the Palestinians' stage to flaunt their victimhood melodrama, as often as possible and however they choose, for the next full year."